D&D 5E WotC will likely be making a dedicated Psion class, as per recent tweets

[Ashrym]

It'd be fair to say that there are styles of play, sub-genres, and character & campaign concepts that are unsupported or inadequately supported, by the standard game

That's what 3PP covers. WotC is building the basic game and has their focus. They are currently successful.

My advice is look at the 3PP for those niche sub-genres, styles of play, and character concepts. Then pick one a person likes and buy it. Supporting those products demonstrates a market for those products. It's the vote-with-your-wallet method and those designers are certainly going to appreciate the support for their work.

 

[Tony Vargas]

That's what 3PP covers. WotC is building the basic game and has their focus.

Meh. 3pp is what it's always been.
It's a hierarchy, the further down you go, the less satisfying it is as 'support' for a given, precious snowflake-like style:

Official, in print, in the Core book.
Officially optional, in print, in the Core book.
Supplemental, in print, by WotC.
Supplemental, on-line, by WotC.
Supplemental, on-line, playtest content, by WotC.
WotC content deprecated by changes/updates/errata.
3pp
Your Own Homebrew
DMsG/Somebodyelse's homebrew

They are currently successful.

How much money they're mak'n has no bearing on what erstwhile styles may have lost support.

Throughout the edition war and the Next playtest, support for all styles was a justification and a rallying cry. Backing off from it may work out fine as a business decision, but for those left out in the cold, it's a more meaningful/legit 'betrayal' than any talked up* in the course of the edition war.









* admittedly, an incredibly low bar for the legitimacy of a complaint.

 

[Oofta]

...
Throughout the edition war and the Next playtest, support for all styles was a justification and a rallying cry. Backing off from it may work out fine as a business decision, but for those left out in the cold, it's a more meaningful/legit 'betrayal' than any talked up* in the course of the edition war.

I think it's a bit over the top to call not delivering everything you personally wanted as a "betrayal".

Spoiler: RANT

[RANT]
No game can be everything to everyone. The fact that 5E is commercially successful is due in part to it's broad based appeal. A game tailored to you personally would likely not have that broad base appeal.

People read a lot in to statements made early on in the gestation of 5E. Did the designer's goals and vision change during the development of the release? Yep. Some of it was based on decisions made when they were writing the initial rules, others were due to feedback from the playtests.

Is the game everything to everyone? Of course not. That's an standard no game or product has ever or can ever achieve. I just don't get the constant whining "they didn't do ____". If the game doesn't work for you find a third party product, a house rule or another game. Meanwhile, the rest of us will enjoy the most popular version of a TTRPG ever released.
[/RANT]

Sorry. Just had to get that out of my system because it's so common on this topic.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think it's a bit over the top to call not delivering everything you personally wanted as a "betrayal".

Well, it certainly was over the top - and less justified - throughout the edition war. And even extended not just to not getting everything you wanted somehow "failing to support X style," but others getting anything they wanted that you disapproved of, somehow torpedoing said style, as well.

At least, now, complaints about certain wants not being met are not as virulent and counter-productive as they were then - not rising (stooping?) the level of edition warring against 5e.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Sure you can want more support from WotC, but that is not the same thing as saying 5e doesn't support different styles of play. You might have an argument that WotC isn't supporting different styles of play. I would disagree, but that is at least a reasonable argument. However, to say 5e only allows one style of play is just an indefensible position IMO. And that is what you said in the part of your post I was responding too.

Heck, I play different playstyles depending on who’s DMing, within my same group of friends. When I DM, it’s a lot like old school, with slower healing, and ad hoc ability or skill checks even if the PC isn’t skilled, living world where monsters react, etc. I’m also a player in two other games. In one, there’s almost no combat at all. Very role play heavy. And in the other, it’s a lot of tactical grid based combat.

So yeah, walk into any random game store or convention, and people do play in different styles, and the game supports that. That’s objectively true. No one is arguing it supports every possible style, but it does most, and styles from every edition. That’s not a betrayal, or a lie from them to have designed 5e the way they did

also, I have a hard time understanding how something could be a failure to deliver if it was never in scope to begin with. Honda don’t fail to deliver LCD screens in the back of my Accord because they never had that in their initial plans anyway, no matter how much I would have liked them.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I have a hard time understanding how something could be a failure to deliver if it was never in scope to begin with.

The Warlord, Assassin, Illusionist, and Psionics in some form were all arguably in the declared scope of the 5e PH, as they'd all appeared in a PH1 in the past - Psionics, admittedly, not as a class, and the Assassin & Illusionist, technically, only as sub-classes.

Artificer, OTOH, sure, out of the initial scope. But well w/in the scope of Eberron - as is psionics, thanks to the Kalashtar & Quori, it's pivotal to the backstory of a whole continent.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

Why do you thing the cash started flowing in the right direction in the first place? The approach WotC is using is working.

A staggered release schedule? A surge of popularity that made D&D cool again? Streaming making it easier (and more likely, thanks to the recent popularity of this form of entertainment) for people to join the hobby? Good storylines? A presentation that doesn't make you feel like this game is not for you unless you're a male caucasian?

I could think of many reasons why the cash started flowing in the right direction that are 100% compatible with statements like "people who like the tactical aspect of the game should have a functioning rules module by now" or "psionics have a strong enough legacy in the game to deserve 30 pages of its own subsystem in a future book".

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'm going to have to throw out an agreement that "5e doesn't support this style of gameplay" and "WoTC isn't providing me official support for my preferred style of gameplay" are completely different statements.

And 5e can support a lot of different elements.

You want horror? I've done horror in 5e, sometimes by accident. Horror is 75% atmoshpere and you can accomplish that with anything. Heck, one of the better horror games I know is Dread, whose character creation is a personality questionaire and uses the 3pp game Jenga for 95% of their rules. But, despite feeling like I was running it poorly, I learned a friend of mine suffers from anxiety because I freaked them out so bad with that game night.

Sci-Fi is just a coat of paint away, maybe a few modified rules.

Games heavy with political intrigue, games focused on cartoon antics and nonsense, games of straight beatstick fights, games of tactical thinking and positioning. 5e can handle all of them.

Is it the best system for all of them? No. Does it have official rules, stats, and erratas for all of them? No. But it can handle them

And since one of the first things we received from UA was a conversion breakdown for 4e and 3.5 materials.... I'd say that a quick check in your old rulebooks and an afternoons work might be all you need to handle anything those two systems could pull off too.

 

[Ashrym]

A staggered release schedule? A surge of popularity that made D&D cool again? Streaming making it easier (and more likely, thanks to the recent popularity of this form of entertainment) for people to join the hobby? Good storylines? A presentation that doesn't make you feel like this game is not for you unless you're a male caucasian?

I could think of many reasons why the cash started flowing in the right direction that are 100% compatible with statements like "people who like the tactical aspect of the game should have a functioning rules module by now" or "psionics have a strong enough legacy in the game to deserve 30 pages of its own subsystem in a future book".

So to be clear, the long playtest with several variations on rules and surveys from the testers because that's how WotC was gathering data listening to players is less likely than the list of unsubstantiated statements you gave?

Do you have market analytics to back that up?

The game became popular because of what WotC did, then money came in.

 

[Tony Vargas]

So to be clear, the long playtest with several variations on rules and surveys from the testers because that's how WotC was gathering data listening to players is less likely than the list of unsubstantiated statements you gave?

5e hasn't roughly doubled the number of people who have ever played D&D by appealing strictly and exclusively to Next playtesters.

There's actually little reason to think the system, or even the content, of a given D&D book has anything to do with driving it's sales.

What the content of 5e has done is appease the segment of it's hard-core cult following that's willing to actively vilify it in public. That's important. To marketing.